is a place for women who live with teenage terrorists. For women who have misplaced their Mojos amongst the menopause, meatloaf, Mojitos and Maltesers! (oh, and dads too!)

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Day 5 - A.D.

The day we take him for an assessment-

He has not fought any of the consequences of his actions yet. He is resigned to the fact that things will change.

Uh, ye-ah, (can you detect the sarcasm in my writing?) that's what happens when your parents find out that you have been smoking pot...and lying...

How many lies? I cannot even begin to try to figure it all out. Lots of puzzles...

I am only looking forward.

So now I am looking at a whole different kind of letting go - one that I had not planned to experience.

Did you know that when you take a child to a therapist confidentiality sticks and the therapist doesn't have to tell you what your child reveals in therapy? I knew this. My husband is a therapist, and I knew this. Intellectually.

But to have to sit with a therapist, husband, and child in a room and leave the therapist with the son and know that I may not know the outcome of the discussion...

...I just have to trust that this professional will do what is best for my son.

Yup, a whole new kind of letting go.

How come letting go -- this thing that we are supposed to do as good parents -- is so painful?

I know, I know, the joy will come when they truly fly successfully on their own. For the moments they are aloft there will be joy. There is joy. I have seen it.

Thank goodness this is my fourth teenager and I know that the peacefulness will come.

And this is my fourth teenager -- I know that I am not done being a parent yet.

9 comments:

Hope you're all OK with the H1N1 - if you know what I mean. As for the confidentiality thing, you'd have to assume that if there were something really serious, (ie, putting your teen at risk) the therapist would tell you? Otherwise s/he can probably handle things. Ugh.

With me it isn't a case of cross fingers, relax, all will be well...it is a state of 'Clenched everything' there is never a muscle in my body that isn't in a state of 'clench' at the moment. The reason will make a great post one day.

We dealt with the same thing with my (now) 21 yr old. he was 17 at the time. Pot, therapy, drug test, lack of trust. Now he's living on his own, supporting himself, working, the whole thing. Our relationship is good, he comes for supper now and then, even brings his girlfriend! I have no doubt that he's still smoking pot (sorry, you probably don't want to hear that), but he's 21, and makes his own decisions. The good to come out of it is that our relationship isn't broken, even with the turmoil of 4 years ago.

to walk a mile in your shoes...l hope we miss this one... though not sure l would know if they were smoking pot... Its been declassified here...and its considered, not by me, to be less harmful than alcohol....

I once thought it would be the lesser of so many evils...but l am very ignorant on drugs...

do you have any information re drugs your husband could pass on at the end of this?

H1N1 is on its way out of our house, thank goodness. We have to watch TT who has asthma. Thanks for the concern.

I'm sure that I could get my husband to write a post -- he writes professionally and could share a great deal. The most common effect of pot is the same one that draws kids (adults, too) to it: it makes a the smoker not care. Nothing is a big deal anymore. And the truth is that stress is a bit of a necessity. If we didn't feel some stress or anxiety, we wouldn't do that things that we need to do. (Would you pay your bills if you didn't get that little feeling in your gut that reminds you - oh, man, I need to pay the electric company!) When you don't care about things, there is no reason to do anything: no reason to do school work, no reason to do chores, no reason to take a shower -- you get the idea. There is such a thing a too relaxed.

And of course, it is a research proven gateway drug.

What my husband says is that pot steals things from the user. And usually the user is so relaxed s/he doesn't notice until it is too late -- or in our case as parents -- someone else points it out to him/her.